Thread: Sandvik saw

Originally Posted by Bill Houghton

Seems to me, if you could modify a saw's temper by leaving it in the sun, there would be stories in the news fairly regularly of people, wallabies, etc., spontaneously combusting on a hot day. Of course, y'all down there in Oz are a tough lot, so maybe you're fire-proof, too.

Yup, but not bullet-proof, and as far as I know, no-one leaps tall buildings at a single bound....

The story about saws tempering if left in the sun is a very common & widespread one, so one would assume there is some substance to it. A piece of metal lying in the sun on a summer day can reach a pretty high temperature; I can't tell you how high, but at least 150 Celsius, I'd reckon. That's well short of the ~300 C recommended for oven-tempering, but since it's a time + temperature process, maybe if you were patient enough a hard saw would soften.

MA, apologies for making you anxious, it would seem your new saw is comfortably in the "normal" range for hardness. It makes sense that a saw made to be re-sharpened & re-set would not be too brittle to accomplish that. But I've heard the story about how hard Sandviks were several times, so it would seem some were..

As Tom said, saws tend to be noisier when sharpened in a metal vise, also, the more blade you have above the jaws the more likely it is to "sing". Hard steels will certainly screech if you don't clamp the blade close to the bottoms of the gullets, & the file probably makes a difference too. The hardest saw I've filed in the last few years was a Disston 77, & it certainly protested a bit, even in my wooden-jawed saw vise. The 77s were extra-taper ground & did not need setting, so were made significantly harder than the regular lines. They were also sharpened with 45* of fleam, which makes a very odd-looking tooth...

Cheers,

Thanks Tom and Ian. SG I think your plastic handles look, dare I say it, better than my timber one. Never thought of using all four fingers to grip mine, maybe that would help. If I still had my EJ Holden, I could have put the saw on the dash, I reckon that used to get hotter than 150° .

MA

Out of modern day saw manufacturers of traditional hand saws (resharpenable) I think Sandvik may be the winner as the Swedish steel is renowned. I too have only bought one hand saw brand new and it was a Sandvik in 1980. I think the model was a No.277, but the faint etch came straight off when I restored it a few years ago. I will have to check but I don't think it was taper ground so I will be interested to see if your saw has taper grinding.

My saw had the red plastic handle, which was... well, plastic! I replaced it. The dragon carved wooden handles are, as you have pointed out, are large and blocky with the carving seeming to be a token nod to the carving of yesteryear. I actually have some spares of those handles. I don't know how I happened to have them.

On the subject of teeth breaking off when setting, I have only had that happen on one saw, whuch was a Robert Sorby. The heat achieved beneath the hot Australian sun is not enough to change the temper of the steel. However steel that is very cold becomes brittle. To demonstrate this point, if you have a 6mm steel bar and subject it down to -40° (either scale as they coincide at that point) with liquid CO2 and hit it only gently with a hammer it will snap off. My conjecture is that on a cold day, which may be hard to find in many parts of Australia, a saw may be more inclined to have the teeth snap during setting. In this instance I am pointing to the coldness of the steel. The other reason for teeth snapping off is that at some point, particularly on a scond hand saw, the teeth may have been set the wrong way and a stress fracture has been induced.

I will post some pix of my saw later. It cuts beautifully by the way. Here are some catalogues: The first is unknown date, but I think pre-1980 and the second with poor pictures is 1989:

Sandvik Hand Saws.jpgSandvik Price List 1989 p2.jpgSandvik Price List 1989 p3.jpg

Regards
Paul

Originally Posted by Mountain Ash

..... Never thought of using all four fingers to grip mine, maybe that would help....

Don't forget, the Swedish climate is a little less benign than ours - if using a saw outdoors in the winter on a really cool day (dunno about Sweden, but in the parts of Canada I lived in, -20 was not at all uncommon), you'd be wearing gloves or even mittens, so the finger-holes on saws made for these climes has to be much more generous......

Cheers,

So the saw below is my 1980 or maybe 1981 No.277, which has had some changes.

P1080336 (Medium).JPG

The original handle was the plastic one with the dragon imprint on both sides a, incorporating a large handle and a huge handhole. This was probably encouraged by cold climes as Ian has observed, and the need for gloves if working outside or in a cold shed, but also the trend towards large hand holes for less accomplished users to grip the tool as if it was about to be stolen from them instead of holding it like a pistol and ready to shoot anybody sufficiently unwise to covert the prized posession.

P1080339 (Medium).JPGP1080340 (Medium).JPG

This is the two handles placed over the top of each other. The original handle left little metal below the heel and this can be seen also in the catalogues: Not so much an indicator of multiple sharpenings.

P1080338 (Medium).JPG

The replacement handle is in Forest Red Gum and is a copy of EC Atkins "Perfection" pattern, which they used on many of their top of the line models including the 400." The "Perfection" moniker is of course a marketing ploy to which I have succumbed, but it really is my preferred handle. Disston (D20 range) and Simonds (No.361/371) had similar shaped handles, but given a choice I go Atkins. It is of course a personal observation and completely open to challenge.

I checked and my saw is not taper ground, which seems contrary to the blurb in the catalogues. It has a .039" thick saw plate and is extremely rigid.

Regards
Paul

Thanks Paul. Your resources are extensive (especially for non Atkins stuff ). I will check my blade for taper but I don't think mine ever had a "plastic coated blade". It appears that brass screws where somewhat down the line of desirability too. Never thought about gloves Ian, but my fingers were numb this morning.

Here’s my Sandvik. It was my dad’s saw,, bought new by him probably in the late ‘50s or early ‘60s (my memories of it date back to the late ‘60s). It’s a 275, 24” 5tpi rip. It picked up some rust before I ‘borrowed’ it from him and needs a sharpen.

Nice Colin. The plastic seems to hold up well. Nice to have some of your dad's tools too.